Page 26 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc

GARRUK

S he leaves her muddy boots by the door again, and it’s not just a matter of inconvenience—it’s symbolic now, like she’s testing the edge of something in me to see if I’ll break.

They sit there, caked with orchard soil and crushed blossoms, evidence of her stubbornness and the wild pace she lives at when she’s in her element, and I stare at them like they’ve grown thorns.

The floor’s barely sealed, the wood still carrying that scent of oil and elbow grease, and yet here we are—her carefree heel prints dotting everything I tried to keep neat.

Controlled. Like the boots themselves are laughing at me.

I don’t mention it. I just step over them, jaw clenched, heartbeat heavy in that way it gets when something so small feels impossibly big because it’s not really about boots.

It’s about change. It’s about how different it feels to share a space—not just a bed or a porch swing—but actual walls and routines and unspoken expectations that I’m still learning how to carry without making everything feel like a war camp.

She’s out in the north grove, planting again.

I can see her through the trees, hunched low, hands in the dirt, hair falling out of its braid as she whispers encouragement to sprigs of green too young to have any real resilience.

She talks to them like they’re old friends.

She never does that with people. Just plants. Animals. Me, sometimes.

The truth is, I don’t know how to be soft in all the places she needs me to be, not all at once.

I know how to fight. I know how to bleed.

I know how to stand still while the storm rips the sky in half.

But I don’t know how to ask her to take her boots off without sounding like I care too much about the floorboards or not enough about her.

When she walks back in, her basket slung over one arm and her hands dirt-stained and full of life, the boots are the first thing she sees. Then me, sanding the window frame like it’s a war crime I’m correcting.

“Don’t,” she says flatly, dropping the basket on the counter. “I see your face. Don’t say it.”

“Say what?”

“The boot thing. I know, okay? I know I keep doing it. It’s not about the floor.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” I mutter.

Her brow lifts, and her mouth twists into that crooked smile that’s more sharp than sweet. “You think I don’t notice when you reorganize the entire kitchen after I use it?”

“I like order,” I say, louder than I need to. “There’s nothing wrong with knowing where things belong.”

“And I like chaos,” she shoots back. “It’s not a moral failing.”

We’re quiet then, both of us simmering just below boil, too aware of how stupid the fight is and too proud to back down. She leans against the counter, arms crossed, eyes watching me like she’s trying to see through skin.

“You want to tell me what this is really about?” she asks eventually, voice softer now. “Because I don’t think it’s about boots or cupboards or the floor.”

I put down the sander, slowly, the way you set down a weapon when you’re not sure if the fight’s over. I rub the back of my neck, eyes skimming the unfinished wall beside the nook I’ve been secretly building.

“I’ve never done this before,” I say finally. “Not like this. Not with someone who matters.”

She walks toward me, careful, measured, like she’s approaching a spooked horse. “You think I have?”

“I don’t know what you’ve done. What I know is that I wake up next to you and part of me’s still waiting for it to end. Not because I want it to, but because I’ve never had a good thing last.”

She exhales, slow and deep, and reaches up to cup my face in those calloused, clever hands of hers. “You built a house for me.”

“I built a house for us ,” I correct.

She smiles. “And I keep tracking mud into it.”

“I don’t care about the mud.”

She tilts her head. “Then what do you care about?”

“That you’ll get tired of this. Of me. That I’ll mess it up by needing too much quiet or not saying the right thing or, I don’t know, caring about floorboards when I should be caring about what’s important.”

She steps closer, resting her forehead against my chest, right over the pendant she carved. “Then let me make something clear, you stubborn, beautiful idiot—I chose this. I chose you. Boots and all.”

Later, when she’s out at the ridge again, I go back to the nook.

It’s my favorite part of the house, the secret part, the one I’ve been pouring into when she’s not looking.

Three tall glass windows that look out over the orchard’s edge, catching the golden light of morning and the silver hush of moonrise.

A built-in bench wide enough for her to curl up on, shelves ready for her collection of spellbooks and half-read novels and odd little plant journals.

The whole space smells like cedar and new beginnings.

I sand the last corner, polish the wood until it gleams, and tuck a note in the drawer where she’ll find it when she finally explores this side of the house. Just one line. Just the truth.

“The only place more sacred than the grove is where you rest your thoughts.”

When she finds it the next evening, she doesn’t say anything at first. Just stands in the doorway, fingers brushing the windowsill, eyes wide and glassy. She turns slowly, crosses the room in two strides, and pulls me into her arms with a fierceness that speaks louder than words.

“This is perfect,” she whispers into my chest.

“You’re perfect,” I whisper back.

She kisses me. The kind that steals time.

And when we part, boots still in the doorway, I know we’re going to be just fine.

Mud and all.